Reykjavík Grapevine - apr. 2021, Blaðsíða 11

1,600 Lives
The 1600 Ni!urfelld nau!"unarmál project tackles the failures of
the Judicial System throu"h art
TW: Discussions of rape and sexual vio-
lence.
Counting from 1 to 1,600 would take
you 26 minutes and 40 seconds. That’s
about the length of a TV sitcom or half
as long as a basketball game. But in Ice-
land, the number has a graver, more
painful relevance. It’s the amount of
rape cases dropped by the Icelandic
Judicial System over the last two de-
cades—the amount of cases that pros-
ecutors or police officers deemed to be
unfit to be examined or go to trial.
But the number will soon take on
a more physical form as part of the
1600 Ni!urfelld Nau!gunarmál proj-
ect, which aims to create a ceramic
sculpture for each individual case lost,
highlighting the plight of survivors, the
failures of the justice system and what
we as a society can do better.
Bringing numbers to life
“It’s a criticism of the justice system
as well as a project to point out how
many cases of rape don’t ever get to be
examined or go to court. That’s what we
are trying to represent,” organiser Eva
Huld Ívarsdóttir explains. She’s created
the project in collaboration with finan-
cial director Anna Lára Fri!finnsdóttir
and Antonía Berg, the founder of Flæ!i,
where the workshops to make the ce-
ramics will take place. “We can always
read numbers and talk about numbers
but it’s a different experience to actually
witness them.”
The Justice System’s statistics actu-
ally do not officially record how many
rape cases are dropped. Therefore, the
number 1,600 is based on work by Ice-
landic scholars who painstakingly de-
termined the number of dropped cases
in 2008 and 2009, which Eva then ex-
trapolated to fill two decades. That said,
the number could easily be more—this
is not a high estimate.
Why was this dropped?
The idea arose in Eva’s head last De-
cember. By profession, Eva is a lawyer
who specialises in sexual offences, and
particularly rape.
“I always had in the back of my mind
how phenomenally many cases don’t
get treated at all,” she explained. After
publishing her master's thesis, which
explored 20 specific rape cases from
2013-2017, a survivor reached out to
her to look at her case, which had been
dropped by the Judicial System. Im-
mediately, Eva was blown away by how
much evidence there was supporting
the crime. “I could not believe that it
was dropped,” she says incredulously.
“I know that the saying is always that
these things are word-against-word,
and you can’t work with that, but there
was so much more in this case. There
was a lot of evidence that could have
been used and tried and examined fur-
ther, but it wasn’t.”
Eva then began thinking about the
fallout such a result could have on a
woman. “I have witnessed how devas-
tating this is,” she says. “Imagine, you
went through all this and then someone
just says ‘Well, it’s just not believable.’”
As Eva was devastated by the story
behind that specific case, she quickly
realised that that was only one story—
there must be many more. At the same
time, she saw a TEDTalk about a woman
who had made origami sculptures of
whales to underscore how many had
died in a certain timescale. She there-
fore thought of the idea to bring these
dropped rape cases to the public con-
sciousness via art—and via art where
each piece would represent a case. And
while she’s not a ceramic artist, the me-
dium just felt right to her.
The fallout of rape culture
The 1600 Ni!urfelld nau!gunarmál
project will be hosting workshops at
Flæ!i—the first in April—where sign-
ups can make their own ceramic stat-
ues for the series. Being a survivor—or
revealing yourself as a survivor—is not
required for participation in the proj-
ect, Eva emphasises. “Each and every
one of us women, we all know rape cul-
ture. Whether you are actually a sur-
vivor or not, you are familiar with the
feeling of being afraid and the way rape
is always a threat,” she says.
Men are often shocked when they
realise how persuasive violence is in
women’s daily lives, Eva explains. It’s
true—all women remember the first
time that they got scared of men or
when their Mom sat them down to talk
about rape. Over their lives, women just
innately know how to carry keys in a
parking lot or pretend to talk on the
phone on a dark street.
“There are reasons for us doing
that,” Eva declares. “We take it in just
as a language and a societal view. And
that’s what I call rape culture. We can’t
define our culture without acknowledg-
ing that.”
“We all have a friend, we all have a
sister, or someone we care for. Each
and every woman, we are so aware of
this,” Eva continues, resolutely. “It’s
just part of our lives whether we have
experienced assault or not. You can’t
get around it.”
Do girls lie?
But what is it about the Icelandic justice
system that is so failing survivors?
“It would be rape culture,” Eva ex-
plains. “I think it’s much easier to live
in a society where we believe that girls
lie. It’s so much easier to believe that
women are vindictive or too sensitive
or reading into something that wasn’t
meant that way.”
It’s a bone-chilling statement and
one that, for most women, will probably
hit close to home. It’s also a thought
that leads into another portion of rape
culture—the lack of education men get
on boundaries, consent and coercion.
“I have great hopes for the younger
boys. There’s so much more conversa-
tion now than there was so they are not
exposed to as much toxic masculinity,”
Eva says. “I hope they are beginning
to call each other out on the culture of
locker room talk and such.”
For Eva, the way forward is conver-
sation. “It has to be an educational pro-
cess,” she explains. Children and adults,
she emphasises, need to have frank
discussions about the normalisation
of rape culture in our every day lives.
At the same time, the judicial system
needs to better accommodate survi-
vors—both during and after their case.
A project for Iceland
In the future, Eva plans on exhibiting
all the ceramic statues together some-
where public. Her biggest dream is
to see the series travel Iceland, as the
number 1,600 represents the amount of
cases dropped all over the country. “It’s
not just for Reykjavík, it’s for the whole
country,” she states simply.
“It’s very weird for me to take on this
project. It’s not typical lawyer work,” she
concludes. “It’s a project that touches so
many of us and I believe a project that
we would like to see happen as a collec-
tive culture.”
The workshops will be filled on a sign-up
basis and interested parties can join and
message the 1600 Ni!urfelld Facebook
group for more information.
Words:
Hannah Jane
Cohen
Photos:
Art Bicnick
CULTURE
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Antonía Berg, Anna Lára Fri!finnsdóttir and Eva Huld Ívarsdóttir
Info
The upcoming
1600 Ni!urfelld
nau!gunarmál
workshops will
be on April 9th at
17:00, April 10th
at 12:00, April
11th at 12:00, and
April 12th at 17:00
at Flæ!i. More
workshops will be
announced on the
Flæ!i Facebook
page.
Participants need not be artists
themselves!
Each piece will represent an individual case dropped
“Each and every one
of us women, we all
know rape culture.
Whether you are
actually a survivor or
not, you are familiar
with the feeling of
being afraid.”